Austin Signal

Early voting starts in just one week, and local officials are furiously working to make sure everyone who has registered to vote is ready to go.

A wrongful death lawsuit against Camp Mystic has been allowed to proceed after an initial pause while the camp began to work its way through bankruptcy court.

What’s better at Austin City Limits: mud or dust? People love to complain about conditions at the music fest and how it damages Zilker Park. But this year the arguments have gotten even more political.

Plus: What’s taking so long to repair and refurbish the Barton Springs bathhouse?

The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Ben Philpott [00:00:10] Early voting starts in just one week, and local officials are furiously working to make sure everyone who has registered to vote is ready to go. And a wrongful death lawsuit against Camp Mystic has been allowed to proceed after an initial pause while the camp began to work its way through bankruptcy court. We’ll have the details coming up on today’s show. The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Ben Philpott. And what’s better at Austin City limits, mud or dust? People love to complain about the conditions at the music fest and how it damages Zilker Park, but this year the arguments have gotten even more political. Plus, what’s taking so long to repair and refurbish the men’s bathroom at Barton Springs? That’s up next on Austin Signal. Hey, Austin, it’s Monday, October 12th, 2026. I’m your host, Ben Philpott. This is Austin Signal. Early voting starts one week from today, and Travis County employees have been working overtime processing tens of thousands of voter registration applications.

Travis County Employee [00:01:23] There are boxes and boxes and boxes of paper sitting in my office.

Ben Philpott [00:01:27] That’s Travis County voter registrar Celia Israel. She says to catch up on the backlog, her office has trained people from other divisions and has worked late nights and weekends. The team working on processing all of those forms is now up to 40 people.

Travis County Employee [00:01:43] So what we have is tons of paper that we have to go through and we have to squint our eyes and say, I don’t know, is that apartment number 10 or apartment number B. So it’s very painful. It’s very detailed, but it’s the law. So we will do what it takes.

Ben Philpott [00:01:59] Early voting starts October 19th. Late last week, a judge ruled that multiple wrongful death lawsuits against Camp Mystic could continue. Here to explain what’s going on in the courts and tell us the reasons for the pause in the first place is KUT’s Williamson County reporter, Kaylee Hunt. Hi Kaylee. Hey Ben. So yeah, why was this lawsuit paused in the first place?

Kailey Hunt [00:02:23] Yeah, so these five wrongful death lawsuits filed by more than a dozen parents who lost their children during the July 4th, 2025 floods at Camp Mystic, they were paused when Camp Mystics and its owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief back in June. And that’s pretty standard practice for these types of cases to allow the entity that’s declaring bankruptcy some sort of relief or protection while they go through that process. And so what we learned late on Friday after a 12 hour hearing was that these death lawsuits can now proceed beginning on November 9th.

Ben Philpott [00:03:09] Was there a specific reason why that protection either wasn’t needed or felt like it could continue and it wouldn’t damage the Camp Mystic during the bankruptcy?

Kailey Hunt [00:03:20] Yeah. Basically, the judge who’s overseeing the bankruptcy case, he said, Judge Christopher Lopez, he said that he believes just the public interest in these cases and the topic is compelling enough to continue to allow the wrongful death lawsuits to continue.

Ben Philpott [00:03:39] And then you said that it was a chapter 11 bankruptcy, but I understand there’s a bit of an argument between whether it should be, and we’re gonna get technical for a second, chapter 11 or chapter seven, but just real quickly, what are the basic differences between those two?

Kailey Hunt [00:03:52] That’s right. Yes. So a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case typically allows a business to continue operating while they reorganize their finances under court supervision. So that’s what Camp Mystic has filed for. The US trustee, which is a federal official that helps oversee bankruptcy cases, they I have asked the judge to consider… Transferring this into a chapter seven case, which would eventually basically see a court appointed trustee sell the camp’s property and assets to pay off all the people that they owe.

Ben Philpott [00:04:33] So chapter 11, you could imagine that someone would buy Camp Mystic and continue Cat Mystic chapter seven. They’re just selling off assets and who knows what would happen next.

Kailey Hunt [00:04:42] Correct

Ben Philpott [00:04:43] All right. And then before we let you go, I did want to switch gears to another story that you’ve been covering. You know, City of Taylor has recently approved an agreement with a developer to build a data center and a power plant in Williamson County. Can Can you tell us a little bit about this agreement with the city council?

Kailey Hunt [00:05:00] Yeah, so this agreement was a big deal and something that’s been months in the making with the Taylor City Council and city staff there. This proposed development initially was in an unincorporated part of Williamson County, which meant that the city would not be able to draw tax revenue from the development and they would not able to impose any sort of regulations concerning zoning or any sort environmental protections. And so they argued it was within their best interest to come to this agreement, which will see this development be annexed into the city. Not everyone is happy about that. Yeah.

Ben Philpott [00:05:44] That’s what I was gonna say, you know, so the the entire city then they’re excited about this or no

Kailey Hunt [00:05:48] I mean, I, yeah, no, I think you could argue that, um, I would, I don’t know if I would say anybody’s necessarily excited, but, um. There are folks that just say this is the lesser of two evils. There are, you know what? Some people are excited, right? Because the city says they’re going to get, um nearly $30 million worth of community That’s right.

Ben Philpott [00:06:09] That’s not bad for a small town.

Kailey Hunt [00:06:11] Well, and again, it’s Taylor small town at this point too, but yeah, and a lot of that’s going towards the school district there. So, you know, there are some benefits, that’s one of the benefits that city staff say.

Ben Philpott [00:06:24] How quickly will something like this break ground, you know that?

Kailey Hunt [00:06:27] That’s another complicated issue because they have not filed their environmental permits with the TCEQ, which is currently on pause at Abbott’s because of a directive by Governor Abbott. So that is yet to be seen when they’ll break ground.

Ben Philpott [00:06:46] All right. Well, that’s KUT’s Williamson County reporter, Kaylee Hunt. Kaylee, thanks so much for covering all those different things going on. And thanks for talking with me today.

Kailey Hunt [00:06:55] Thanks for having me, Ben.

Ben Philpott [00:07:04] We’ve got more Austin Signal coming up for you in just a second, stay with us. Austin City Limits 2026 is officially over. The KUTX crew is at Zilker Park right now, taking down the tent and loading up. The first weekend was rainy and muddy. The second, the Texas heat returned and so did the dust. But the discussion over this year’s weather was pushed into politics. People on both the right and left pointed to damage to Zilkert Park as a reason to move the festival and even vote out local politicians. Here to talk about it is Austin American Statesman, City Hall reporter Chaya Tong. Hello, and thanks for joining us here on the Austin Signal.

Chaya Tong [00:07:52] Thank you so much for having me.

Ben Philpott [00:07:53] All right, first let’s kind of get, let’s explain the big picture, I guess. Whether it’s mud or dust, what is the argument people are making about ACL at Zilker?

Chaya Tong [00:08:03] Yeah, it was super interesting this year. I mean, bottom line, everybody was mad about the weather and about the mud, and you kind of saw two camps emerge politically. You had a more progressive liberal camp that was upset about the environmental impacts on Zilker Park, reignited some longstanding environmental debates we’ve had here in Austin over whether the festival should be at Zilkert Park at all, or what the damage could be to the environment, parkland. And then you had the conservative camp which used the mud as kind of a symbolic jumping off point to talk about everything they saw wrong with city government, city management, stuff like you can’t even manage a music festival, why should we trust you with anything else? So you saw these two.

Ben Philpott [00:08:46] If we just had a different mayor, then clearly the festival, it wouldn’t have rained. The weather would have been better. Well, so one of those big arguments that you mentioned is just let’s move the festival away from Zilker. Are there any real serious suggestions about where you would move it in Austin if it weren’t at Zilk?

Chaya Tong [00:09:04] One that I heard this year a lot was moving it to Circuit of the Americas. I’m not sure like how much political traction that has inside City Hall. I mostly heard that from outside City Hall, I spoke with council member Ryan Alter, who also weighed in on this whole Zilger Park damage debate. Um, and he said he made it very clear that he was not interested in moving the festival, but unsure of how much more traction that has inside city hall.

Ben Philpott [00:09:28] Well, I think we’ve both heard a lot of people just simply say, yes, I want it moved. Oh, where? Well, out of Austin. I just don’t even want it in Austin, which that’s probably not going to happen either. What’s next in terms? So, I mean, there was damage, though. I mean there’s tons of mud. And then, of course, you had the dust and just destroying everything with thousands of feet there. So what is next in terms of assessing damage from this year’s festival? And then who, you know, who’s going to pay for it?

Chaya Tong [00:09:52] Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, every year C3 presents, which is the company that manages ACL. They’re responsible for restoring the park and historically have done so every year. I think Councilmember Alter said he has every confidence that that will happen this year as well and that’s a standing part of the city’s contract with ACL.

Ben Philpott [00:10:11] Are there any limits on that? I mean, like, is there a money amount, any kind of limit to how much C three is willing to pay? I mean what, what can they do? Can they just put down sod over the entire park again? Like, what do they do

Chaya Tong [00:10:24] I mean, from what I, my understanding is they can re-sod the park, um, I’m not sure about a money limit. I just, I know that their responsibility is to leave the park the way they found it. So that’s kind of the level of responsibility they have.

Ben Philpott [00:10:39] That seems like a high bar.

Chaya Tong [00:10:40] Yeah, that’s a big ask.

Ben Philpott [00:10:43] And then, you know, you were talking about this earlier, environmentalists do tend to lead this fight. Is it just election year? I mean, is that we’re so close to one of the closest races that we’ve had in the state of Texas, between right, left, conservative, liberal, whatever, in decades here. Is that just bleeding into everything? And that’s what we’ve got this year.

Chaya Tong [00:11:09] I definitely think there’s something to be said for that. I mean, politics is coming into everything. We saw James Tallarico at the festival last weekend, which reignited a whole social media storm. I also think, you know, this is a debate that happens every year in Austin. We always have environmentalists and others saying that they’re really concerned about damage to the park. But I think, two things happened this year. One was election year. So you had political arguments just getting kind of thrown to the top of social media feeds. And you had that kind of, yeah, getting more and more important by the day. Um, but I think you also had like this really interesting social media moment in and of itself. We had these really stark images of the before and after of Zilker Park. You saw the park go from green to brown, and I think those images made really good social media fodder and like a really, um, good jumping off point for people to have kind of a larger debate.

Ben Philpott [00:12:03] We’ve been speaking with City Hall reporter Chaya Tong. Chaya, thanks so much again for coming in and talking with us on Austin Signal. Thanks for having me. And you know, we’ve got even more from our coverage of ACL over at kutx.org. Stick with us here on Austin signal. We’ve got more for you in just a minute. This is The Austin Signal. Welcome back. The historic bathhouse on the northern edge of Barton Springs Pool is one of the city’s most cherished public landmarks. It’s where visitors to the Springs have changed and showered since the 1940s. And its central rotunda has taught thousands of people about the endangered salamanders that inhabit the Springs. But the building has been under construction for almost three years for a long planned rehabilitation, much longer than expected. And what prompted one pool user to write into KUT’s ATXplain project to ask, what’s going on? So KUT Nathan Bernier looked into it.

Nathan Bernier [00:13:05] Swimmers at Barton Springs Pool generally fall into one of two camps. There are those who wade in, slowly creeping down the limestone stairs into the chilly spring-fed waters, gasping at every step, like me. Yikes, and then there are those who plunge themselves into the 70 degree pool Javier Paramares is a jumper.

Javier Paramares [00:13:33] Yeah, you just have to jump in and it’s not that close once you jump in, I promise.

Nathan Bernier [00:13:38] Padamades rides his e-bike to Barton Springs about four times a week, and he’s noticed some issues with the rehabilitation of the historic bathhouse. Construction started on that in early 2024, and the bathhouse partially reopened about a year ago, in October 2025.

Javier Paramares [00:13:53] First off, the man’s bathhouse has a sewer vent running through it that fumes gasses out into the bathhouse and doesn’t smell great. I don’t know how the women’s bath house looks, but I hope it’s holding up better.

Nathan Bernier [00:14:10] Also wondered about the rotunda out in front that’s been closed for construction since early 2024, which is getting close to three years ago. So all this prompted him to reach out to ATXplain.

Javier Paramares [00:14:22] So the question I would like you to answer for me is, what’s going on with the renovation? How did it go so wrong? Will it be fixed? And when? And how did, yeah, just what ended up happening here?

Nathan Bernier [00:14:35] I will do my best to answer and I will call you back with.

Javier Paramares [00:14:38] What I find out. Alright, sounds good. Alright, thanks, sir.

Nathan Bernier [00:14:45] So what is this bathhouse? It’s not like it has any bathtubs or anything. Well, the Barton Springs Bathhouse is kind of like the gateway to the springs that’s attracted humans for at least 13,000 years. Only the bathhouse has been around a little less than that since 1947. Still historic though. And instead of dark enclosed locker rooms, it has these roofless courtyards where people change and shower. There’s like plants and grass and you’re under the open sky. It’s kind of nice. The building is even on the National Register of Historic Places, but after almost 80 years, it was showing its age. So the city put together a plan to renovate the bathhouse. In 2023, the project was finally ready to go out for bid. At an environmental commission meeting, a city official, Riley Triggs, laid out a plan to start construction right after New Year’s and wrap up in about 14 months. But Commissioner Richard Breimer wondered about the price tag.

Richard Breimer [00:15:39] What’s the current cost estimate of this? I heard or read or something about $10 million, is that correct? Yes, approximately that, yes. Okay. And notwithstanding inflation and labor availability and supply chain issues, you don’t anticipate a, you know, significant change from that going forward. We will know when the contractors submit their bids.

Nathan Bernier [00:16:06] Renovating a historic landmark in a floodplain and directly next to the habitat of two federally endangered salamanders was never going to be easy, and it was never gonna be cheap. The official city estimate put the construction price tag at a little over $9 million. Two bids came in, and when they were unsealed, senior parks officials were shocked. The lower of the two bids was submitted by the Texas-based contractor Spawglass, and it about $17 million. The other bid topped 20 million, more than double the estimate. Behind the scenes, internal city emails I obtained captured the shock. One senior parks official described the numbers as disheartening.

Senior parks official [00:16:47] It’s pretty normal for the preliminary or design cost estimates to be off from bid. That much off is a little less usual.

Nathan Bernier [00:16:58] Alyssa Therrett oversees architectural development for Austin Parks and Recreation. The city decided to go with the lower bid from SpaGlass. And in early 2024, the project broke ground. A couple months later, the city did something else.

Paige Ellis [00:17:13] Item 35 is renaming the Barton Springs bath house after Joan means Cabela. I really appreciate-

Nathan Bernier [00:17:18] Page Ellis’s council district includes Barton Springs.

Paige Ellis [00:17:21] We just did a groundbreaking on that bathhouse, so I think this is very timely.

Nathan Bernier [00:17:26] When this bathhouse was first built, it was not open to everyone in Austin because of segregation. And for a long time, black swimmers were not allowed in Barton Springs Pool. That is until a local teenager changed that.

Joan Means Khabele [00:17:41] 1960, spring of 60, I went to Austin High.

Nathan Bernier [00:17:46] Joan Means Kebele was one of the first black students to go to that school. This is from an interview she gave to Austin PBS back in 2014.

Joan Means Khabele [00:17:55] Barton Springs is iconic. Barton springs is Austin. Even though I had never been there, everybody talked about it all the time.

Nathan Bernier [00:18:03] So when it came time for the annual class picnic at Barton Springs, the black students were only allowed in after a lot of pressure from parents and students. But they were told, don’t go in the water.

Joan Means Khabele [00:18:14] You know how big Burns Springs is. How do you control all the people in there? So we started swimming. And that led

Nathan Bernier [00:18:22] to a summer of swim-ins, to pressure Austin eventually to desegregate its recreational facilities. But it was not easy.

Joan Means Khabele [00:18:30] I found that almost everything that opened, we had to march, protest, petition, go to the council. These things just don’t open by themselves.

Nathan Bernier [00:18:43] Cabello passed away in 2021. The 2024 groundbreaking on the Joan Means Cabelli bathhouse at Barton Springs was more than a decade in the making. There were master plans and feasibility studies, a couple bond elections, public input meetings, so it took a very long time to go from talking about fixing it up to actually working on it. And just like the construction cost was about double what they first thought, the time it will take to build this will wind up being about twice as long. Here’s Alyssa Theriot again.

Alyssa Theriot [00:19:17] The current contractual substantial completion date is or was October 25th of 2025. Technically the whole project should have been done last year.

Nathan Bernier [00:19:30] Now, some of the bathhouse did reopen last October, like restrooms and shower areas and lifeguard offices, but the rotunda and restoring it as the grand entrance to Barton Springs along with all the educational exhibits, that’s still closed. And emails show the city and the contractor bickering over who’s to blame. For example, even though it’s a complicated renovation of a super old building, a lot Part of the delays are related to high-tech museum hardware. The city has this elaborate installation with an interactive video wall that’s tracked by motion-sensing cameras. There are laser projectors and touch screens and it’s just been hard to set up. In one email, SpaGlass said the city failed to deliver a really important touchscreen monitor until mid-June of this year and that was 55 days late. And the contractor has accused the city of what it calls a systemic design management failure. And says that plans for the exhibit were repeatedly changed after construction was already underway. In these emails, the city told SpaGlass that the project’s been in a formal state of non-excusable delay since October 2025. SpaGlas said no, that’s incomplete and inconsistent with the documented record. City officials talked privately about scheduling a grand opening for this month. A way to try and pressure the contractor to get over the finish line. So when you go through all these records, there does not appear to be a single big thing that held up construction for months and months. It’s a whole bunch of little things that add up to big delays. And by the way, SpaGlass did not respond to requests for comment. Now the city is not exactly sure when will be done but thinks it will be soon.

Senior parks official [00:21:20] We’re tracking it. Unfortunately, the dates tend to move a bit each week. So there’s not yet a set in stone date. We are tracking stuff that shows substantial completion in about a month.

Nathan Bernier [00:21:33] And the city still needs another month after that to set up exhibits and an aquarium and to train staff. Hello? Hey, Avier. I called back Avier Palamares, who asked about the bathhouse for ATXplained, and I told them about what I learned, including about those sewer smells in the bath house that the contractor and city staff have been trying to figure it out. They sent smoke through pipes to see where it goes. They found some bad plumbing, and they’re working on it. And the bath House probably won’t open until the winter.

Javier Paramares [00:22:08] I don’t think there is a better answer, but I just wish it was the project is done soon and done correctly. Like you said earlier, it’s a crown jewel and I think it’s better for it to be fully open for everyone to enjoy.

Nathan Bernier [00:22:23] And maybe that will include me one day. It’s so f***ing cold. This is not pleasant. But now that I’m in, it doesn’t feel so cold. I’m Nathan Bernier in Austin.

Ben Philpott [00:22:35] That’s it for us today on Austin Signal. Thanks to Nathan and all the reporters who helped out today. Caroline File is our technical director. Alexander Hart is our producer. Managing producer is Kristin Cabrera. Jimmy Moss is the show runner. And I’m Ben Philpott. Talk to you tomorrow.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.